These questions are off topic but I'd just go ahead and answer them as well... I've too much free time on my hand.

Originally Posted by Crabapple

I totally don't agree- I mean, ideally, one should walk through one's life without fear, but :confused:

These are just my opinions. Ideally...

- People can do their jobs without constant fear of being laid off and company won’t downside.

- Women can walk through a parking lot at night without worrying about the possibility of being robbed or taken away.

- Everyone can feel safe when traveling to a foreign country because the local always treat tourists fairly and won’t ever think of stealing their baggage or ripping them off.

- Justice will be served to you without you fighting for it.

(And let’s not get into the 'problems' between men and women.)

I know these are the ‘should be’, but I honestly think they are all wishful thinking.

Originally Posted by Crabapple

I think you're right about "Some things you really can't understand unless you've been there." Yet I would expect compassion. Perhaps I am too idealistic. *sigh*

Well... this is directed to me. I think you aren’t really expecting too much. I don’t usually show ‘compassion’ in the Internet because it seems so fake. Because I think you can’t really say you care about a person unless you actually have done something for them. Talk is free, you know, so to me compassion in the Internet comes very close to bullshitting. So I prefer to just state the facts.

Many people take offense to what I said but hey I probably am more truthful than most.

"Man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated."- Ernest Hemingway

Reality is malleable. Everything can change. Talking about bullying isn't just cheap talk. It's creating social influence and values. Change in a society comes from these redefinitions. History is full of such succesful examples. Look, recently, at how feminists managed to secure a more comfortable status for women. It takes time and it's hard work. However, the "weak" option is giving in and conforming. The "strong" option is fighting for what you know will be better. If all women had told themselves "Well, it's nearly universal that men make sure their wives are submissive so why change? It's better to adapt", there would never have been any change. In sum, we need to take action to ensure that no kid will be allowed to be bullied again physically or psychologically. Talking is a necessary first step as it contributes to spreading values and raising interest, which in turn influences people's behavior.

Reality is malleable. Everything can change. Talking about bullying isn't just cheap talk. It's creating social influence and values. Change in a society comes from these redefinitions. History is full of such succesful examples. Look, recently, at how feminists managed to secure a more comfortable status for women. It takes time and it's hard work. However, the "weak" option is giving in and conforming. The "strong" option is fighting for what you know will be better. If all women had told themselves "Well, it's nearly universal that men make sure their wives are submissive so why change? It's better to adapt", there would never have been any change. In sum, we need to take action to ensure that no kid will be allowed to be bullied again physically or psychologically. Talking is a necessary first step as it contributes to spreading values and raising interest, which in turn influences people's behavior.

First of all I would like offer my apology to ptgatsby and Crabapple, and also to anyone who is offended by what I said. I think saying that the victims are "asking for it" and "have it coming" is bad taste and inappropriate. But that's an afterthought.

I wasn't offended, so no worries. I did find it very interesting, and my reactions were based upon my past more than anything you said.

First of all I would like offer my apology to ptgatsby and Crabapple, and also to anyone who is offended by what I said. I think saying that the victims are "asking for it" and "have it coming" is bad taste and inappropriate. But that's an afterthought.

Thank you for apologizing. I wasn't so much insulted as pained and confused.

[QUOTE=KMCE]I don

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
-- Unknown

Basicly, anything you do could possibly have a negitive concequence. Doing the right thing, being careful, doesn't garantee good things'll happen to you by a longshot.

And so, just assuming people who have horrible shit happen to them deserve it is bullshit. Yes, they could have done better. Everyone can do better. Bullying, rape, robbey, whatever, is often pretty fucking arbitrary, and some very good people have some pretty nasty things happen to them because they're good people. You are not rewarded for being a good person.

People want to believe that you must have done something wrong to deserve the bad shit that happens to you, because then all they have to do to avoid tragedy is keep being the good people they are. They get to pretend they have control over their own lives.

When I was in High School I shared some of the traits that were described. Getting high grades on tests and essays. Spending time reading odd books. But I didn't turn away from people who wanted to chit-chat with me. I was quite talkative even then.

I remember being in the library once and overhearing something coming from a table of college prep kids. The "leader" of the group was a guy known for his basketball skills. One member of their group was a guy who was such a "teacher's pet" that he would actually go up to teachers and say that his pending college scholarship required that he get an "A" in every class. Most of the other guys in this clicque were also jocks with smarts though. A clicque with some class to it that maybe wondered why I never tried to join ( by always laughing at the leader's jokes etc.) IOW. The leader spoke loud enough for me to hear, although softly enough that he could pretend to be just conversing with his sycophants.

"Look at Kuranes over there, trying to act so nonchalant" he said.

There were certainly times at school when I was "acting" and doing the "cocky bird walking amongst cats" part. ( I love that analogy ! ) In this case I was genuinely looking for a particular book, nor were these guys exactly true "cats".

I guess I could have chosen that time to walk over to the table and make a joke like "I resemble that remark" and see if they wanted to break the ice. But I didn't. I went back to my seat with the book ( having found it a minute later ) and read it.

None of us nerdy types then were much for the snarling, and trenchcoats with thrash metal decals etc. I guess that was for nerds of the future, still to come. We didn't radiate hostility. I was actually in some clubs, but they weren't considerded "cool" clubs - mostly because they didn't involve sports, which was the only thing these types considered "cool". I was actually embarrassed when I would win some National Forensics trophy and have a photo of me appear on the cover of our local paper. I did help people with their schoolwork, but only to a point. If they tried to play a game of being friendly only in private, then I would burn them eventually.

I didn't join the sports clubs teams because I either was ( A. ) not skilled enough in that particular sport, or because ( B. ) I knew the team was crawling with the same jerks that liked to give me a hard time. I probably could have made the football team.

I made an ally, without really even trying, with this one guy who had been held back a couple years, who was on the football team. He was not only really tall, but also tremendously musclebound. I had helped him a few times in my weakest subject, Math. I didn't think he even remembered it.

So...later on this other guy was dissing me verbally, although he was too cautious to be a real bully ( cat ), and he was hoping that some others would come along so that they could get up their nerve to actually DO something to me that would get them a reaction. Some of the bullies ( that he sucked up to ) came into the room about then, and I could tell by their facial expressions that they were thinking of adding themselves ( in words or deed ) as "gasoline" to the embers that this initial guy ( Rick Daum was his name ) had fanned into life.

That was when the big guy I described earlier stood up and grabbed Rick by his neck and threw him across the aisle into some chairs, saying "STFU Dum-Dum" and that was the end of that. I remember thinking of him when that movie came out years later called "My Bodyguard" or something. That summer I grew from being a fairly short guy into nearly my full 6 foot 4 height that I have now.
That wouldn't have changed things much for the actual "cats" in my school, but they were usually not the problem. There were only a few serious badasses who ( mildly ) disliked me. If they attacked it was usually just out of boredom, vs. real resentment It was usually the suck-ups to the big cats that were the problem. Some of them were built pretty solid themselves, and they were in groups with other suck-ups often enough. One time, back when i was still a little guy, I had the pleasure of kicking the ass of a major suck-up, in gym class, in front of a wrestling team referee. I smiled when I heard the very "cats" they sucked up to cheering ME on. After my height and size changed, some of the same guys that had once harassed me began to subtly suck up to ME. It would have beeen funny to do something about it, but by then I was getting ready to leave for college. In my mind, I had already left high school. I got into a class for "advanced" study and didn't even have to go to the old watering holes/classes anymore.

"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them that they are being attacked and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
Reichsfuhrer Herman Goering at the Nuremburg trials.

Reality is malleable. Everything can change. Talking about bullying isn't just cheap talk. It's creating social influence and values. Change in a society comes from these redefinitions. History is full of such succesful examples. Look, recently, at how feminists managed to secure a more comfortable status for women. It takes time and it's hard work. However, the "weak" option is giving in and conforming. The "strong" option is fighting for what you know will be better. If all women had told themselves "Well, it's nearly universal that men make sure their wives are submissive so why change? It's better to adapt", there would never have been any change. In sum, we need to take action to ensure that no kid will be allowed to be bullied again physically or psychologically. Talking is a necessary first step as it contributes to spreading values and raising interest, which in turn influences people's behavior.

This is definitely true from my view as well.

It's actually interesting to see how social groups of kids share a lot of similarities with different parts of politics. You have the various cliques and alliances, lots of people fear something different, aggression towards things strange and different, etc. Over the long term, these types of values tend to cause problems in societies and weaken them (people loose differences in opinion and skill of adapting to other differences, and have less of an ability to adapt to changes in the world.), so dealing with these values when people are young has some importance.

I've actually been at the receiving end of a lot of the sort of social crap described earlier in the thread. In school before 8th grade I mostly got the "male" sort where people would be pains in the ass directly, later on I got the "female" sort (That was done by a mixed group of males and females), where I over time ended up more and more cut off from a lot of the friendships and activities going on. (One of these group where the "female" thing happened really hurt, as it was the first time I felt like I actually had a lot in common with a large group of people. After getting kicked out of that, plus after some more social crap happened with people I was much less invested in, I've given up on the idea of having really close friends with a lot in common.)

The "male" form is preferred, personally, because it's easy to see from the outset who the problems will be, and most males who aren't problems are a lot of fun to hang around, joke, and such with. The "female" form is much harder for me to deal with, since it is often based on breaking some unwritten rule, or just accidentally annoying some random person without them realizing it, and suddenly the bullied pertson finds themself less and less accepted in the group, and not sure why, or how to change it.